Tories, NDP expect to take Liberal-held ridings in Ontario byelections

Ontario NDP Leader Andrea Horwath and Ontario PC Leader Tim Hudak attend an event at the International Plowing Match in Chute-a-Blondeau, Ont., in 2011. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Colin Perkel

TORONTO – Voters are casting the final ballots before polls close in five byelections that are seen as a test of Kathleen Wynne’s six months as premier.

Ontario’s political parties were making the final push to get their vote out Thursday, with all three party leaders doing last minute campaigning in Ottawa, London, Windsor and two Toronto ridings.

All five seats had been Liberal, so the byelections are a chance to see if Wynne is being judged on her own merit or on scandals, such as the costly cancellation of two gas plants that she inherited from former premier Dalton McGuinty.

Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak is hoping deputy Toronto mayor Doug Holyday can help the Tories win their first seat in Toronto since 1999. Hudak has acknowledged that making inroads in Toronto will be key to winning the next general election.

“I’m feeling people want to send a message,” he said. “They want to send a message that they’re tired of a government that wasted so much of your tax dollars on the gas plants.”

Their star candidate Holyday, the last mayor of the old city of Etobicoke, is running against fellow city councillor Peter Milczyn for the Liberals.

The competition has sparked a war of words between the governing Liberals and Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, who has been campaigning for the Tories.

Ford didn’t mince words earlier this week about what he thought of the scandals, calling the government corrupt and saying voting for the Liberals was akin to handing a gun to a bank thief and telling them to rob another bank.

He also urged voters to support the New Democrats if they didn’t vote Conservative.

Transportation Minister Glen Murray fired back the next day, criticizing Ford for injecting himself in the byelection and taking credit for a subway extension to Scarborough that the province was largely paying for.

He labelled Holyday a “mouthpiece candidate now who is basically running now on the coattails of the mayor and his brother.”

Ford called Murray’s comments “unbelievable” and an “embarrassment.”

“The provincial government affects us. You have to get involved,” he said. “You choose a candidate and you get behind them.”

The New Democrats are widely expected to take Windsor-Tecumseh, and are in a two-way race with the Conservatives in London West.

But they could be punished for propping up the minority Liberals in the spring, amid the gas plants scandal and another involving the province’s air ambulance service.

NDP Leader Andrea Horwath said voters are tired of the Liberals.

“They talk about life being too expensive and the government ignoring their everyday concerns,” she said.

The Liberals’ best chances appear to be in Scarborough-Guildwood and in McGuinty’s old riding of Ottawa South, although in both ridings the Tories are contenders.

The Tories feel they have a real chance because of voter anger with the way McGuinty quit last October under a cloud of controversy.

The Liberal candidate, John Fraser, has close ties to McGuinty as his former executive assistant. The riding is also represented federally by McGuinty’s brother, David.

The Liberals were one seat short of a majority before the five resignations, and Wynne will still lead a minority government Friday regardless of the outcomes of the byelections.

Political science professor Henry Jacek at McMaster University says the fact the byelections won’t change the status of the government means voters can focus more on local candidates and local issues than they would in a general election.

Low voter turnouts are believed to help sitting governments, and both opposition parties were fuming when Wynne scheduled the byelections just before a long weekend at the peak of the summer vacation period.